Sharp County record., 1887-01-27

are to-day kept out of the Kingdom of God
because they can not believe every thing,
/ am talking with man thoughtful
about his soul, who has lately travelled
through New England and passed the night
at Andover. He says to me: II can rot
believe that in this life destiny is irravo.
cably fixed; I think there will be, mother
opportunity of repentance atter death, D
l say to him: "My brother. what has that
to do with youl Don't 'oor realize that the
man who waits for another chance after
Geatn' Wnen ne Lss y good chance before
u1"Un, Is d 81 4ck 1ooll Had not you better
5 Iaho tn9 , .snk that is thrown to you now
"Ii anu n'' II for shore rather than wait for a
!, pi"' II that may by invisible hands be
.hrown to you after you are deadl Do as
{ you please, but as for myself, with pardon
| for all my sins offered me now and all the
| Joys of time and eternity offered me
now, instantly take them rather than run
the risk Of such other chance as wise men
think they can peel off or twist out of
a Scripture passage that has for all the
| Christian centuries been interpreted an
other way.
You say: "I do not like Princeton the
ology or Andover theology" do not ask
you Oh board either of the great men-of-
war, their portfolios filled with great siege
guns of ecclesiastical battle But do ask
you to take the one plank of the Gospel
that you do believe in and strike out for
the pearl-strung beach of Heaven.
Says some other man: 81 would attend
| to religion if I was quite sure about the
| doctrine of election and free agency, but
| that mixes me all up.n Those things used
to bother me, but have no more perplex-
ity about them, for say to myself: "If l
| love Christ and live good honest useful
life l am elected to be saved; and if do
not love Christ and live a bad life l will be
| damned and all the theological seminaries
| Of the universe can not make it any differ
entn foundered along while in the sea
| of sin and doubt, and it was az rough as
the Mediterranean on the fourteenth night
when they threw the grain overheard; but
saw there was mercy for sinner, and
that plank l took, and have been warm
ing myself by the bright fire on the shore
| for three decades,
While l am talking to another man about
his soul he tells me: 81 do not become a
! Christian because do not believe there is
any hell at all,n Ahl don't you9 Do all
! the people, of all beliefs and no belief at ALL
| Of good morals and bad morals, go straight
| to a happy Heaven? Do the holy and the
| debauChed have the same destinations3 At
midnight, in a hallway, the owner Of a
house and a burglar meet each other, and
they both fire, and both are wounded, but
| the burglar dies in five minutes and the
| owner of the house lives week after. viii
the burglar be at the gate Of Heaven
waiting when the house-oWner comes in!
viii the debauche and the libertine go
right in among the families Of Heaven2 |
| wonder if Herod is playing on the banks
of the River of Life with the children he
massacred. IwOnder if Charles Guiteau
and John Wilkes Booth are up there shoot
ing at mark. do not now controvert it,,
although l must say for such miserable
Heaven l have no admiration. But the
Bible does not say: "Believe in perdition
and be saved"
Because all are saved, according to your
theory, that ought not to keep you from
loving and serving Christ. Do not refuse
to come ashore becluse all the others, PC
| cOrdlng to your theory, are going to get
ashore. You may have different theory
about chemistry, about astronomy, about
| the atmosphere, from that which others
| adopt but you are not therefore hindered
from action. Because your theory Of light
is different from others, you do not refuse
to open your eyes; because your theory of
air is different, you do not refuse to
| breathe; because your theory about the
stellar system is different, you do not re-
| fuse to acknowledge the north star. Why
should the fact that your theological the
ories are different hinder you from acting
upon what you lmow9 If you have not a
whole ship fashioned in the theological dry
docks to bring you to wharfage, you have
at least plank. "Some on broken pieces
of the ship"
"But do not believe in revivalsp Then
go to your room, and all alone with your
door locked give your heart to God and
| ioin some church where the thermometer
never gets higher than fifty in the shade.
/" But do not believe in baptisml" Come
in without it and settle that matter after
ward "But there are so many inconsist-
! them by good example how professors
ought to act. "But don't believe in the
Old Testamentr Then come in on the
New. "But | don't like the Book Of Ro-
mansm Then come IN on Matthew or
Luke Refusing to come to Christ, whom
you admit to be the Saviour of the lost, be-
cause you can not admit other things, you
are like a man out there in that Mediter-
ranean tempest and tossed in the Melita
| breakers, refusing to come ashore until he
can mend the pieces of the broken ship.
| | hear him say: 81 won't go in
on any of these planks until l
know in what part Of the ship they be-
long; when | can get the windlass IN the
right place, and the sails set and that keel
piece where it belongs and that floor tim
| Der right and these ropes untangled, will
90 ashore am an old sailor and know all
about ships for forty years, and as soon as
| can get the vessel afioat in good shape |
will come I'M A man drifting by on a
piece of wood hears him and says: "You
will drown before you get that ship recon-
structed Better do as l am doing. l know
nothing about ships, and never saw one be-
| fore l came on board this, and ! can not
swim a stroke, but am going ashore on
this shivered timber" The man in the
offing while trying to mend his ship goes
down. The man who trusted to the plank
Is saved. o, my brother, let your smashed
up system of theology go to the bottom
while you come in on splintered SPAR
"Some on broken pieces Of the ship"
You may get all your difficulties settled
as Garibaldi, the magnetic Italian, got his
gardens made. When the war between